Best Wetsuits 2020: Quiksilver Highline Plus

Watch the complete 2020 Best Wetsuits test here.

This was not my favorite-looking suit of the bunch. There’s a bit too much going on for my tastes, what with all the seams across the legs and patchy panels throughout. But the ocean is the great equalizer. Once I’m in the water—at least for any extended period of time—I’ll take a good if-slightly-less-appealing suit over a bad, visually appealing suit any day. 

Function over fashion, as they say. And this suit was supremely serviceable.

Our criteria for the 2020 Best Wetsuits test were, simply, comfort and warmth. To Quiksilver’s credit, their Highline Plus achieves both of these ends in great measure thanks to a simple but genius design theory: put the warmth where you need it most, make it stretchy where you don’t.

The suit is centered around two large seal-skin panels on the chest and back, which is designed not to let any water or wind in. Then there’s a bunch of stretchy, nimble neoprene around all the major joints. This facilitates paddling, wild gesticulations, shoreline jiu-jitsu—anything really. 

On top of that, the suit’s inner lining is made of this Hot Tamale-red fuzz that literally looks (and presumably works) like housing insulation. In fact it was so fuzzy that, like your favorite wool sweater, it would cause a slight itch from time to time—but not enough to negate all the suit’s positive qualities. 

The Highline Plus is a suit that truly understands the spirit of merging comfort with warmth, which is all we can really ask for. 

Official Scorecard
Warmth: 40/50
Comfort: 38/50
Bonus: 5 for balance 
Total: 83/100

Quiksilver Highline Plus ($329.95)

Quiksilver Highline Plus ($329.95)